The Tonics

Looking For the Good Times (Lance Rock)
by Jon Sarre

A half-hour plus of retro-ranting from five stompin’ Canucks who bang out the big beat like it was 1966 and cover Neil Diamond (“You Got to Me”) and Billy Childish (“Best Things in Life”) and do ’em both justice. The Tonics are flat-out built to impress with their single-minded intensity, with which they slam into what you need at “The Lido,” deify someone named “Shannon Frost,” offer up yet “Another Piece of Me” and take the “Battlestar Galactica” down to tree-top level, buzzing semis, RVs and minivans on the freeway, and then soar back to the stratosphere for another messy guitar and farfisia-driven number. Looking For the Good Times has a little surf, a bit o’ Beach Boy pop, wa-wa action, one Who quotation (from Quadrophenia’s “Sea and Sand” on “Scooter Girl”) and a whole lotta bloody yer nose garage rock’n’roll. Plus, Mr. Savage Pencil was good enough to contribute the psychedelic good times gone bad, real bad cover art. What else d’ya want?
(www.lancerock.com)